In order to make the brand concept more concrete, Volvo Cars has supported this sport for 26 years.
Reporter | Li Yimengone
Volvo Cars is integrating its long-standing brand concept according to the actual situation in China market. Since this year, this luxury car manufacturer from Sweden hopes to export a kind of "connotative luxury" to its audience, which is the integration and reconciliation of its three brand values of safety, health and environmental protection.
In addition to many publicity strategies, golf will be an important communication channel, which will make Volvo’s brand concept more concrete.
Despite the previous COVID-19 epidemic, the 2020 Volvo China Open, originally scheduled for April, ended successfully last Sunday (December 13th) after being postponed.
This tournament attracted a large number of excellent domestic players to participate. After four days of fierce competition, Zhang Huilin, from Changde, Hunan Province, finished with a 71 (-1) shot today, and won the championship with an absolute leading total score of 269 (-19), becoming the fifth local player to win the Volvo China Open.
Up to now, Volvo China Open has been held for 26 consecutive years and has become an important incubator for professional golfers in China.
"I have been asked a question for many years. Why does Volvo do the Open? There are so many sports events. Why does it do golf?" Zhao Qin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Volvo China Open and Vice President of Corporate Communications of Volvo Cars Asia Pacific, talked about the relationship between golf and brands at the beginning of the interview.
She said that there is a deep relationship between Volvo cars and golf. This luxury car manufacturer has been rooted in this field for many years and has formed rich experience in operating international competitions.
In Zhao Qin’s view, golf is a sport that does little harm to human body and can exercise the whole body function, which is highly consistent with the concept of safety, health and sustainability advocated by Volvo Cars for a long time. In addition, the elegance and introversion of golf and its players are also consistent with the brand characteristics of Volvo cars.
She has previously said that if the English name of GOLF is divided into four letters, it can stand for "Green", "Oxygen", "Light" and "Friendship" respectively.
"We have always had an idea about golf. It should not only be a circle movement of a few people, but also a healthy lifestyle with public participation." Zhao Qin said.
As it said, Volvo Cars has tried to popularize this sport among the audience in China in recent years with the help of an international competition platform such as the China Open.
"Someone once said that golf is an aristocratic sport, but it is not. If you look at Volvo’s hometown of Sweden, golf is a mass sport, and all people will play golf from old to young." Zhao Qin said, "In China. The whole golf atmosphere has also become a healthy, elegant and popular sport through the efforts of all parties. "
For example, she said that in recent years, under the guidance of the China Golf Association, a "campus golf" project is being developed in Shenzhen, with the aim of introducing this sport into the physical education curriculum in primary schools, so that young people have the opportunity to contact and love golf.
Since 2005, Volvo has started to hold the Youth Match Championship, and since 2019, it has started the Youth Challenge. This year, it held the Volvo Youth Masters in China. All these initiatives are aimed at providing a diversified platform for more young golfers.
"There will be two main highlights next year, one is the Youth Challenge, and the other is the Qualifying Tournament, which will provide more opportunities for China players." Zhao Qin said, "This year’s amateur challenge has been expanding. At present, it has been restarted after the epidemic and 11 games have been done. As the frontier event of next year’s qualifying tournament, there may be more than a dozen games next year, and the scope will also be expanded in adult amateurs. There are also qualifiers. In view of some inspiration from the participation of pure China players in the China Open, more qualifiers may be held next year, and qualifiers can be held for both men and women. "
In this tournament, Zhang Jiena Lin entered the China Open as the first female player in the history of the tournament. "It’s a pity that she didn’t advance in the end, but I think it’s a very proud thing for women players to appear in the men’s professional open." Zhao Qin said.
In fact, Volvo Cars is emphasizing the concept of "equality" in all aspects, including its advantageous safety field. The Swedish luxury car manufacturer observed that most of the fakes used in collision experiments in the industry were made according to the figure of adult men. Although the elderly, women and children are more vulnerable to the collision because of their bones and physiological structures, the dummies made according to their actual conditions account for a relatively small proportion, and there are no dummies made according to the body shape of pregnant women.
Because of this concern, a pregnant woman dummy named LINDA came into being in the safety experimental center of Volvo Cars in 2000, which is also the first dummy made in the industry according to the situation of pregnant women who are 36 weeks pregnant. As early as 1995, before LINDA came out, Volvo cars began to use female dummies for crash tests. Up to now, the manufacturer has developed a complete "dummy family" that basically covers all population samples.
At the same time, out of concern for sustainability, Volvo Cars is actively promoting its comprehensive electrification strategy.
This luxury car manufacturer proposed a comprehensive electrification strategy in 2017, becoming the first luxury car brand to propose comprehensive electrification.
At the Guangzhou Auto Show held at the end of November this year, the XC40 RECHARGE, Volvo’s first pure electric vehicle, was officially launched and attracted great attention. Zhao Qin confirmed that in the future, more Volvo cars will be equipped with 48V mild hybrid system or join the RECHARGE product system.
According to its plan, by 2025, the sales of pure electric vehicles will account for 50% of the total sales of Volvo cars, and the remaining models will adopt plug-in hybrid technology with long pure electric endurance.
At the competition site, the display of a series of new cars conveyed the brand-new brand concept that Volvo Cars hoped to convey to the outside world. "Connotation luxury is a naturally simplified and refined expression, which is very compatible with Volvo’s brand image, user group characteristics and even partners." Zhao Qin explained, "Safety, health and sustainability are our strategic fulcrums. Everything on these three fulcrums, whether products or services, is supported by these three points."
She said that safety is Volvo’s strongest feature. In terms of health and environmental protection, Volvo Cars introduced AAC double-effect enhanced air purification system to build a CLEANZONE cockpit. The former was jointly developed by Volvo and Blueair, a well-known air purification solution provider, and with the filter specially optimized for China, the isolation efficiency of this system can reach over 95%. In addition, Volvo also made a strict choice of interior materials based on health considerations.
"So what kind of luxury brand is Volvo? I think’ connotative luxury’ is very appropriate and in line with the public’s cognition. " Zhao Qin concluded.
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